Kowai Kare Da
by Nightfall Rising
Summary: Memory can be really painful on the wrong side of the end of the world. Another look at the poker-faced librarian. Complete! Pics up on my site.
1. wearied of pale tea

Disclaimer: Anyone who thinks that any of this dialogue belongs to me should beware of major spoilers for Slayers: NEXT. Anyone who thinks that any of these characters belong to me is clearly new to the idea of fanfiction.  
  
Author chat: It feels so good to post unadulterated Slayers again! This is part of a Xel-centric arc I'm writing, but it's also purely canon, taken straight from episodes 7, 8, and possibly nine of NEXT. Some of the reader's questions, such as what Milgazia did to disgrace himself during the Kouma Sensou, will be answered at greater length in the arc, although this is the only piece where he's the focus. For now, I'll just confirm your suspicions that the other Golds probably thought Xellos was a bad influence on him.  
  
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Kowai Kare Da  
  
by Nightfall  
  
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Things it's good to know:  
  
1. Lina stood up -through- the Sword of Light once, and Gourry threw it to Phil at one point without a flicker of anxiety. He also never uses it on humans; he uses the steel blade, which is also what he used on the gang's pet black dragon in the first episode. I have formed a working hypothesis that it's a weapon against evil and doesn't work on other things, and I operate on that basis. I also assume that people who were around during the Kouma Sensou would probably recognize it.  
  
2. Milgazia may have access to the knowledge and wisdom of the Flare Dragon, but he's out of the current events loop and doesn't know Rezo is dead.  
  
3. The medical term of the white of the eye is 'vitreous humor.'  
  
4: Translations! Courtesy of www. freedict. com/onldict /jap .html.  
  
Kowai: 'frightening' or 'eerie'. Kare: 'he' or 'boyfriend.'  
  
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Technically speaking, he should have been guarding the library. But then, technically speaking, he -was.- Patrol was a perfectly legitimate guard- like thing to do. Was it his fault that the leaves were all shiny-yellow and new with spring, or that the sky was as blue as the Father's underbelly? After all, if he spent too much time camped out on Dragon's Peak, eventually somebody was going to figure out that something of value was being guarded there.  
  
Even if he was more or less indistinguishable from half the other Golds on the mountain even to people who already knew the Claire Bible was held there. Even if it was perfectly normal for priests to have favorite prayer spots and spend most of their time meditating in them. Even if--  
  
Screw it. His peers were out stretching their shapely wings, the bright young things were playing tag and keep-away in the currents and flashing their comely limbs, it was a beautiful day, and Mil was going flying, dammit. It was his honor and his penance to serve and protect and all that jazz, and if he had to sip in blissful complacency at -one more- cup of weak green tea while staring at the same three rocks, he was going to do something unintelligent.  
  
He might, for example, apply again to be relieved. Or at least put on a shift system. He'd started out on a shift system, him and six other bright- eyed kids who were much more enthusiastic about it than he was.  
  
Then the war had come. By the time it was over, all six of them were dead, along with most of the continent's various populations, Mil was in even worse disgrace than he'd started out in, and the world as he knew it had ended. But, O Consolation, the library was -much- more impressive.  
  
He'd thought at the time that being in disgrace would be worth it. He wasn't sure about that anymore, but he was still certain, with a weight in his chest that a thousand years could only nibble at, that he could never have behaved in any other way. Not then, and maybe not even now.  
  
But now he was flying low, brushing the tops of trees with his tail just for the feel of it, because there was no one but trees left for touching, not for him. Not for the Golden Gold. If challenged, he'd say that the occasional stirring-up of any environment was a good way to keep interlopers out of it. No one would challenge him, though; he'd done it all at least sixty thousand times before. His methods of keeping himself from going stir-crazy were all cemented and defendable and more or less ignored by now.  
  
Flying low, turning belly up to watch the clouds (mazoku could fly, and some of them used animal spies), tail high to people-watch in the lake (she wasn't called Dolphin for nothing), spine to the sky to watch the sway of branches and the lazy turns of faraway roads, going elsewhere (travelers and--oh.)  
  
Travelers. Absolutely coming here. Not wandering, either, or admiring the scenery, but trudging, with a determined pace that said they knew where they were going and didn't care how long it took to get there. An inviting splash of colors in just the wrong place, going just the wrong way. As for time, there was never a right time for humans to climb Dragon's Peak.  
  
Unfortunately, the last time he'd eaten one, the elders had nearly had a collective stroke. Mil didn't see what the problem was; humans ate them when they could, after all. They half-expected to be eaten, too, and had invented the concept of poetic justice all on their lonesomes, the darlings. But it was that kind of thinking that had chained him to the mountain in the first place.  
  
So instead of chasing them off the cliff and snatching them out of the air (a tempting fantasy in the mood he was in, especially when they gawked at him and started discussing his size--as though they had either right or a basis for comparison!), he just landed, stretched high and bellowed.  
  
That usually worked, and watching small backs running in fear with long tails of hair trailing behind them had been known to make his week. Which would be good, because he was about three cups of weak tea away from biting some self-important puffed tail out of sheer, stultifying, soul-churning boredom.  
  
These people seemed not to be an easy scare, though. They didn't howl gleefully at him and try to talk him into posing for golems like the terrifying young lady with the little skull between her softballs who'd come up a few months ago. They didn't try to bully him, wwhich was too bad, since he had a substantial immunity to bullying and often in fact found it entertaining when attempted by incompetents.  
  
Neither, though, did they run screaming in terror. They just pulled a little closer together--but like a fighting unit, not like frightened chicks--and murmured cautiously at one another. These were people who spoke his language.  
  
But probably not literally, so he'd have to speak theirs. Abandoning some of the height advantage, he asked, "For what purpose do you of the human race trespass here?"  
  
Mil hated speaking human. It had painful associations and he was rusty. Also, the sensible way of speaking it had died a millennium ago, and the only way left, last time he'd checked, was wearyingly flowery.  
  
"It talked!" yelped the tallest of the travelers, who could probably have passed for a Gold himself without too much difficulty. "Did you hear that?!"  
  
"Yes, Gourry, we heard," the red-headed fashion victim said, in a dull voice that said she'd been walking all day and now she had to deal, not unexpectedly, with idiots. "The dragon talked."  
  
"Is it strange to you," Mil asked heavily, happily eliminating unnecessary verbal curlicues, "that a dragon can speak?" Behind his gravity, he was amused. The last human he'd willingly spent this much time with would have professed astonishment to learn that a dragon could ever -shut up.-  
  
"Nah," the Gold-impersonator said happily while the blue thing beside him winced and the short girl who looked like Softballs went white, "I've just never heard one before! Where did you learn human-talk?"  
  
Human-talk, he thought, and couldn't quite repress a little snort. So much for the Courtly Speech that Transcends Nation. No wonder city-cant had died out. And the young idiot wasn't even afraid of him anymore. How... refreshing, actually. "The race of dragons is one which persists in eternity," he said genially--a complaint, if anyone had been around to decipher it. "In swimming through the seas of time and chance, we encounter the tongues of other races and make them our own."  
  
Now they were all looking at him like he was using too many word. He felt, oddly, as though he didn't want to drive them away. He'd pared it down as far as he could though, short of saying 'old guys meet people, duh.'  
  
"So," the boy said brightly after a moments' consideration (and what a good thing for him that he was pretty and endowed with a weapon of legendary reputation, because from the cringing looks on his companions' faces they would otherwise have killed him years ago just for damage control), "you're saying you learn other languages to keep from getting bored?"  
  
Mil twitched. He could feel his eyes going different sizes at the confounding human, and tilted his head in linguistic pain. "I... uh, suppose that interpretation will serve," he said finally, choosing his words with care for brevity. Either the world had changed more than he'd thought, or this kid was mentally challenged.  
  
"Well," Blond And Brawny beamed, practically rubbing his dark half-gloves hands together in satisfaction, "being able to talk will speed this up a lot. Lina! Tell his guy what's going on and ask him to take us where we're going."  
  
Mil twitched in sheer disbelief, and muttered, "This guy?" Didn't the twit see the wings? The torso-sized claws and fangs? His well-developed chest muscles? Did he not know that the famous weapon he was carrying only worked on mazoku and inanimate objects? Everybody knew that!  
  
The two young ladies sprang into an immediate and probably much-practiced damage control act, Fashion Victim throttling Brawny in instant public retribution while Mini-Softballs shielded them with her body and shamelessly begged him for mercy. Brawny squawked, "What'd I do now?"  
  
"You, my visitors," Mil decided quietly, "are passing strange." He was just deciding that this was shaping up to be his best day in decades when he heard the tap of wood on stone. A shortish, darkish figure melted out of the shadows of a crag in the cliff wall, and suddenly Mil had to swallow all his internal organs back into place.  
  
The first thing was the hair, because nobody had hair like that anymore. And the hair alone was enough to break his heart. He remembered when that dark, greyed purple, a silky mauve so dark and dull you could wear it for mourning, had been flashing heliotrope highlights on a glossy, vibrant black. Bare eyes were squinted tight, because the world had yet to reinvent polarized glass to hide behind, where there should have been darting lavender effusion made large by coke-bottle lenses. And then that expanse of silver and red, strung across that hidden, ruined, magnificent chest like a half-healed scar, was chain and manacles to anyone with eyes for it.  
  
The terrible mockery of a cloak, orderly blood-red rectangles where a border of swirling green and gold belonged, over a shirt in the old style of a dead order that was meant, apart from creating useful pocket-folds, to modestly hide a sexy waist (it mostly served to stretch long legs) was a cruel breath of vanished memory, and the familiar bag of books bulging innocently at his side didn't help. He still left his bandages poking outside his boots, still hid the limp with a smooth sashay--even with the staff to help him.  
  
That staff. Mil couldn't even look at the horrible thing. How could he, when he knew what it was? And worst of all, worse even than watching a ghost flaunt its own frozen heart on a stick of solid blood, was the sucking, seething void that spun with sedate impatiance before his astral eyes, delicate black tentacles flickering like lightening even without intention.  
  
When the mazoku half-sighed, all grave business, "It's been a long time, Milgazia-san," Mil wanted, just for a moment, to fall and stretch his neck long and just let the thing kill him. It was unbearable, hearing that dark, promising voice call him anything but Miru-chan.  
  
But Xellos was looking at him with challenge in his set little smile, an irritated expectation of failure that had stung him once to deplorable, glorious heights. Now it was only goading him to civility, and he wasn't sure he wanted to manage even that. Drawing himself up stiffly, he pushed words out without evaluation. "A very long time. I had hoped never to cross paths with you again, Master-Beast Xellos," he said stiffly, and managed not to spit, quite. Xel-kun was not in the building.  
  
But Xellos was looking at him now almost fondly, a look halfway between 'caught me out' and 'that's what I thought you'd say.' It occurred to him to wonder whether the children the priest was travelling with had known who he was before. If not, maybe this was his lucky day after all. Xellos might even be quick about killing him, for old times' sake.  
  
The humans seemed mostly astonished about Xellos knowing a dragon, though, so maybe he hadn't de-sacked any cats. And Xellos didn't seem concerned-- was, in fact, doing his shy-maiden wriggle and being only ordinarily secretive, as though he was used to the walking statue calling him rude names and making demands.  
  
Maybe he was used to it. Of all Xel's sweet modesties, only courtesy had survived the war. After that, Rezo had assured him glumly, coming to visit on the official pretext of making sure that the Bible hadn't got tired of slapping him on the wrist and knocking him on his dignified red bottom yet (he'd done this every decade or so until his marriage had turned him unexpectedly monogamous), Metallium had turned into quite the twisted little son of a beast. How ironic, that Xellos had gotten mature enough to be kinky just when Mil was starting to feel too tired for it.  
  
It had been a long time. He hadn't seen Xellos--hadn't even seen Xel-- since his exile to home, although Xel had written faithfully until he died. Rezo hadn't been able to shake the little ghoul, and Rezo had gotten married anyway. Rezo was born a fool. "I haven't seen your face," he said pointedly, "since the Kouma Sensou."  
  
Three jaws hit the floor while the blond displayed his serious need of a history lesson, and Xellos just stood there, listing a little to one side, everything about him murmuring, But isn't it a cute face? All that meant, though, was that he didn't have anything to say. But there wasn't anything to say. Even Xel had never been his, had never promised him anything.  
  
"So to a Gold Dragon like Milgazia, here, Xellos would look a lot like an enemy!" Fashion Victim was finishing. Mil wondered if shaking the boy like that would make it easier or harder to keep information in his head.  
  
"The monster's fall?! Xellos?!" he repeated back, shocked, and then his face shell sheepishly. "Um..."  
  
"Forget it," she sighed.  
  
Forget it. Yes. Absolutely forget it. Xellos wasn't here for him. Xellos would never be anything for him, not even his death. So screw the small talk. The sooner they were gone, the sooner he could curl up in the cold lake and pray until his scales turned blue and his heart went numb again. "Master Beast. Why are you in my valley?" For a favor. Only for a favor. Small words were getting easier all the time. The only question left was, why the hell had he brought humans with him? Did mazoku -do- nostalgia?  
  
"The truth is," Xellos confessed in a light, businesslike tone that made Mil want to play stickball with his head, "we find ourselves in need of your Claire Bible. I was hoping you'd let this young lady here use it."  
  
"Let a human use it?" Mil choked, shocked. He'd expected to be given the choice between honorable death (or at least a humiliating fight to unconsciousness) and the final degradation of willingly letting a mazoku touch his charge, but a human? Fashion Victim choked nervously, trying to turn it into a laugh. She was certainly powerful. He could see it all around her--forces curling the ends of her hair, rippling through her black cloak.  
  
But which did Xellos want her for, the gold magic or the black? Which of his two great ladies was he playing for? Was he a monster today, or a ghost?  
  
Mil leaned forward a little and narrowed his eyes suspiciously, as though all he was asking was whether he'd been given Rezo's godawful peppered oatmeal for a breakfast joke again. "What are you up to?"  
  
"I'm not the one who's up to anything," Xellos said earnestly, all wounded innocence in his surprise. "It's Hellmaster-dono that is."  
  
Mil was ready to disbelieve anything he said, but then his voice went dark-- not a whole octave lower, just enough to put anyone who knew him well and truly on the alert, long ribbons of sentence reeling out without any space between the words. He betrayed his origins every time he opened those supple lips, and almost no one was old enough to know it. "He hasn't told me what his objective is."  
  
Then the air came back into his voice, a merry little self-deprecating sorrow. "Ah, the sad and sorry lot of middle management." And then he laughed. H'ha-ha-ha. Four cracked syllables, curling in on themselves like a centipede dried out and cracking on the pavement. Was that how he laughed now? Desperately, like the joke of life was pointing at him, just waiting for his smile to flicker?  
  
"And what will you do if I say no?" Mil asked coolly. It wasn't the question he was asking. They both knew he'd cave without a murmur. But was this for a joke, or a move in a game, or something personal? How would Xellos answer him--a quip? An innuendo? A flurry of nightmarish logic?  
  
"Think," Xellos said, entirely serious beneath that porcelain smile, "of something other than negotiation.  
  
He sighed. "I see." He did, too. If the master of 'do what I want you to so I don't have to put myself out and manipulate you' was using flat-out threats when they both knew that Milgazia had never been able to refuse him anything, it was to tell him how out of control the situation was.  
  
And if it was out of Xellos's control, things were bad. In Xel's life, the only thing he'd never been able to entirely master was Rezo, and that was only because he had steadfastly refused to try. And if Xellos was bothering to hint at how bad things were, it must be Mil's business. In which case, -shards.-  
  
The humans wouldn't know the little priest that well, though. They were looking at him in astonishment, as though they'd never seen him wield real power before. It was too bad, because Xellos rearranging the universe was a glorious sight, but Mil had enough respect for his own hide not to spill any more secrets.  
  
"If such is your intention," he started cautiously, staying vague. Tilting his head again he gazed down helplessly, surrendering not to Xellos's strength but to his judgement, he acknowledged, "we are in no position to check you. As ever, you'll please yourself. However," he finished, and blinded them all with the radiance of a dragon between forms.  
  
Xel could moon all he liked about his blind lover's hands. They all knew what the dragon could do to him, given half a chance--well, the children didn't, of course, but everyone here who mattered did. Being large and majestic wasn't fazing Xellos in the least, but being beautiful might. Even if it was just Miru-chan.  
  
"However, I myself shall lead you to it." Xellos was -not- going in. He hadn't bargained for that, and he could wait on the cliff like everybody else. "Follow."  
  
And sure enough, when he turned to cast one last resentful look over his shoulder before walking off, Xellos was behind his wary humans again, away from the light, with his legs braced wide and his knuckles tight on that gruesome, horrible staff, and anyone who'd seen that nonexpression before knew that the secret it kept was nothing like pain.  
  
( Meanwhile, the author waves her Xellos/AnyoneAndEveryone flag, and elsewhere a destitute street urchin has fallen and skinned his knee. But don't feel sorry for him. He's eeeeeevil. Also, he gets a piggyback ride. )  
  
[end part 1/3] 


	2. release duty, fall silent

Disclaimer: Anyone who thinks that any of this dialogue belongs to me should beware of major spoilers for Slayers: NEXT. Anyone who thinks that any of these characters belong to me is clearly new to the idea of fanfiction. Anyone who reviews gets love. It might stretch as far as homemade banana bread (dangle, dangle. Heeere, fishies...)  
  
Author chat: If anyone's interested, my Xellos Pairing Flag should be up on the fanart page of my site by, oh, August 9th-ish. Review responses below, and bonus points to anyone who tags Milgazia's quote.  
  
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Kowai Kare Da  
  
part two of three  
  
by Nightfall  
  
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Things it's good to know:  
  
1. Lina stood up -through- the Sword of Light once, and Gourry threw it to Phil at one point without a flicker of anxiety. He also never uses it on humans; he uses the steel blade, which is also what he used on the gang's pet black dragon in the first episode. I have formed a working hypothesis that it's a weapon against evil and doesn't work on other things, and I operate on that basis. I also assume that people who were around during the Kouma Sensou would probably recognize it.  
  
2. Milgazia may have access to the knowledge and wisdom of the Flare Dragon, but he's out of the current events loop and doesn't know Rezo is dead.  
  
3. The medical term of the white of the eye is 'vitreous humor.'  
  
4: Translations! Courtesy of www. freedict. com/onldict /jap .html.  
  
Kowai: 'frightening' or 'eerie'.  
  
Kare: 'he' or 'boyfriend.'  
  
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It was a long walk in something impressively close to grim silence as they mused on the spectacle, as Xel had smirked once, of a twenty-meter mustard- colored reptile shrinking into a very minor six-foot sex-deity in robes not even a dumb animal would be caught dead in--oh, right, fine, Miru, prove me wrong, -only- a dumb animal then--ow!  
  
Of course, there was that hushed conversation between the boy Gourry and Mini-Softballs (her name didn't suit her) about where his clothes went. Blue Thing (who looked hauntingly familiar in a short and pebbly kind of way, and whose name was much too long to bother with) glared them down quickly though, before turning his icy, jealous stare back between Mil's shoulderblades.  
  
It was nice to have someone envy him. It had been so long since he'd had that feeling that he'd even stopped missing it. Knowing the reason would have made it better, though. He didn't think it had to do with Xellos, who strolled placidly behind them all as though he expected nothing more of their destination than a cup of hot cocoa.  
  
The real question, the stomach-knotting, migraine-inducingly worrying question was, as always, what was going on over that bland little curve in the monster's head. He'd outright asked before, somewhat optimistically. Surprisingly, he'd gotten information, if not an actual answer, and it was enough information to know that although Xellos was finished giving freebies, Milgazia was cordially invited to find out whatever he could on his own.  
  
He was going to have to start asking questions--and soon. He could access the Bible from any point on the mountain, but that didn't make his time unlimited. If he didn't have any answers by the time they reached the pinnacle, if they had to start going down again, his potential sources were going to get suspicious. He was going to have start the conversation himself, soon, but if he was the first one to talk, it was going to look terrible, so--  
  
"Ne, Milgazia-san," Fashion Victim interrupted his increasingly frantic train of thought. "Is the place with the Claire Bible very far?"  
  
Opening!  
  
"Not far. We soon will be upon it. If I may, human maiden?" She made a noise--less than graceful, but inviting and gratifyingly prompt. At least -someone- was intimidated by him. "It has not escaped you that Xellos is mazoku, and of them all a most grievous schemer. For what reason do you cooperate with his purpose, which is like to be a fell one?"  
  
Behind him, he could practically hear purple eyebrows clanging together in annoyance, the serene smile winching a notch tighter. Less than subtle maneuvering always drove Xel crazy, especially from someone he expected more of.  
  
"Well," she said slowly. Instead of laughing the threat off as he'd expected, she spoke with a troubled gravity that was reassuring. This wasn't a girl who was out for adventure. She understood the magnitude of what she faced, which might even mean she knew what she was doing. "So far, I don't see any other choices for us. Of course, I know Hellmaster doesn't wish for peace on earth and goodwill towards men--and maybe the guys trying to kill me are even doing the right thing. But I don't know the reasons for it. I can't just roll over and die for somebody else's reasons. I wasn't brought up that way."  
  
He didn't look at her. It was enough: he understood. Her value couldn't have been any clearer spelled out with illustrations. He wondered whether Xellos had, over the years, trapped in an orderly Order as he was now, sponsored other loose cannons with enough ties to darkness to let him get away with it, or whether he would fight for this girl like a stage mother. The latter, he hoped. She was likeable, in a headachy sort of way.  
  
If he embarrassed Xellos by telling her any of that, he'd be wolf chow.  
  
"In this you have nothing of which to be ashamed," he said instead, since her inability to blindly play martyr to demons was clearly weighing on her. "It is a natural thing. Breathing is a difficult habit to break.""  
  
The intensity of his undead friend's closed eyes between his shoulders keyed up a suspicious notch. He was debating the relative evils of foredoomed battles, missed opportunities, and the inevitably forfeit rags of his dignity should he pursue that line of bedevilment when Brawny gasped, a sound like epiphany, and drew all their eyes.  
  
"I just realized," he gushed. "I've been thinking--about the Kouma Sensou. It happened a long time ago, right?"  
  
Xellos blew out a loud gust of air, just to get Mil back for that breathing jab. Mil kept his stern face on, and entertained himself by watching the little twitches under cool skin as Xellos counted historic landmarks in his head. "I believe it ended a thousand and twelve years ago, to be precise. Why do you ask?"  
  
Needle, needle. Maybe it was just a nasty tease, or maybe Xellos wanted to know whether referring to the massacre would push his buttons. It didn't. By the time the Master Beast had eliminated the dragons' victorious Purification Legion, Milgazia had been sick to death of the whole business. Any end had been welcome. At least he had, by then, learned better than to say so. He could only hope that Xellos saw more indifference than self- control in his lack of significant expression, and could see how much he didn't care.  
  
A long muscle bunched in the strapping young jaw. "Xellos, you..." Brawny began fiercely, and paused. Xellos warily shifted his grip on the abomination that was his staff.  
  
Then Brawny's grim intensity shattered into a sunny, careless smile that spiked Mil's heart with bitter, acid nostalgia. He hadn't seen a smile like that on an adult in centuries. "You're a really, -really- old man," the boy laughed, "aren't you?"  
  
Xellos missed a step out of sheer disbelief and crashed to one knee, and Mil could only stare. Blue Thing demanded to know where -that- had come from, Brawny burbled--quite rightly--about how good Xellos was looking for a man his age, and Milgazia was frozen.  
  
He got it. The boy knew what Xellos was, knew what it meant, and he didn't care.  
  
It wasn't just Fashion Victim--Lina--who Xellos had adopted. It was all of them, even Mini-Softballs with her enormous, bright, crackling aura of white magic. And this boy Gourry, with his clear eyes, who understood the truth of things so well he didn't bother naming them, who could see past the dark void of a monster's missing heart to his intentions. The little shrine maiden was an innocent and could be twisted, but the boy couldn't. The boy would never willingly serve an evil purpose, no matter what stories the master manipulator told, because the pretty, persuasive words wouldn't stick in his head. He would see beyond them.  
  
The mysterious priest had returned to the service of chaos.  
  
"Er, yes," the mysterious priest said weakly, as Brawny had himself a hearty chortle. "It's too kind of you. Really."  
  
Mil had to laugh himself. It was too good, too good. A thousand years of bright cruelty and Xellos dogged Rezo's steps like the proverbial kicked puppy, mucking up his good deeds and tripping him with mischief. But let the world need saving, and it wasn't His Virtuous Benevolence he came to but the scale-faced, lizard-brained black sheep of the Golds. Rezo might be the beloved one, but when the sparks hit the wire, it was Milgazia who was trusted.  
  
"You are no typical humans," he smiled, and it hurt his face. "I see now," he said and although he was talking to them, he looked straight through her to Xellos. "If you are involved, we need not fear the plans of monsters."  
  
"Milgazia-san," Lina breathed, delighted without understanding, and that was all.  
  
Behind her, Xellos had placid-calm face on over a massive seethe. The way people reacted to dragons--'delighted without understanding' described it fairly well--had always driven him up a wall, and seeing the girl who was clearly his star pupil doing it probably would have done dangerous things to his blood pressure if he'd still had any. It had taken Mil years to convince him that the instant charisma effect wasn't something that anyone did on purpose, the more so since it had taken Xel years to convince -him- that the instant adulation effect wasn't anyone's rightful due.  
  
It was generally a good idea not to piss off high-level mazoku. Mil was going to have to do something spectacularly un-Ryu right now. Which was probably a good idea anyway; the pheromone-induced hero-worship in her lovely crimson eyes demanded an answer.  
  
"Try to see the truth with only your own eyes to guide you, human maiden," he smiled down into them. "And when you find a belief, follow it through with all that you are. That is how to fulfill a dream."  
  
There. Lofty and vague enough to make her glow up at him (and what a pity that she'd come while still clearly underage; she was a pretty little thing under the Lookit Me I'm Poisonous coloration of her clothing), but an independent-minded enough philosophy that Xellos stopped sulking. It felt good to be out of the doghouse with -somebody.- Blue Thing was still eyeing him suspiciously, but he was starting to get the feeling that a glare from Blue Thing was neither personal nor unusual.  
  
He sighed in pure satisfaction. Perhaps his life was pathetic, if the mere lack of disapproval could feel this good. It did, though. "Shall we go?"  
  
The children all gaped at him and started looking around at the rocks and sky. Fashion-Victim, rather like a burbling infant or an overexcited puppy, demanded, "You mean it's here? The Claire Bible is here? Where is it?"  
  
"This way," he said simply, and strolled over to casually put his hand through the mountain. The children's astonishment was well worth the unimpressed lines of Xellos's back and shoulders. Since Xel's attitude towards him had always been a sort of affectionate despair anyway, he didn't worry about it. "The path to the Claire Bible is here. You may walk without difficulty through this semblance of a cliff. Follow, Lina. As for the rest of you, you must remain here to wait."  
  
"Oi," Blue Thing said uneasily. "Why just Lina?"  
  
It was good to see that the suspicious one had some loyalty, but he wasn't going to spend the journey there with ice eyes lodged in his spine. Besides, Xellos hadn't bargained to come, and he was neither bringing a demon into the mountain nor leaving him unsupervised if he had any kind of choice. "Oh, you may enter," he said sweetly, his lowered brows telling a different story. "It is merely that, should you encounter difficulty. I will not assist you. The mountain holds an endless labyrinth, and I alone hold the map and key."  
  
The girl made a choked noise and stepped back, realizing what she was getting into. He couldn't help but smile a little, especially when Xellos settled back on his ethereal heels in annoyance, as though to say 'if you're going to rub it in, at least cut the gadzookery.'  
  
The smirk pulled his lips wider in satisfaction, and he added a little salt. "Without knowing the way, either a mazoku or a dragon could spend their lives searching for a way back."  
  
"Yes, yes," Xellos agreed earnestly, spreading a palm out. "Exactly so."  
  
It was a familiar tone, the one that came at the end of the morning after a visit, when Mil would grudgingly become aware of the time and the length of the flight he had in front of him. It was a 'how nice it was to see you and surely you have things to do so please go away now' voice. Usually it had meant Xel wanted some alone time with Rezo before they, too, had to go back to their respective temples. It sounded more pressing this time.  
  
Mil frowned. A moment ago, Xellos had been all patience.  
  
The children weren't picking up on the urgency, though. Gourry sounded only ordinarily concerned when he agreed to wait, and so did Blue Thing when he told her to be careful. Mini-Softballs, although she spoke with intensity, grinned optimistically when she shook her fist and decreed, "Please bring us back a souvenir!"  
  
"Like there's going to be any?!" Lina sputtered.  
  
"So! Let us go then, you and I," he quoted brightly, and had the double pleasure of seeing Xellos wrinkle his nose cute little perky nose in disgust and the girl stagger towards him with wide eyes like iron filing to a magnet. Her face went determined, and she reached to take his outstretched hand--the one that wasn't shimmering through rock.  
  
In the moment before she took it, something shivered.  
  
Mil jerked, his Astral senses tingling, and looked up in time to see Xellos catch it, too. Oh, he knew that expression, that 'what have we here look,' sweet eyes mild with curiosity in a sharp, set face, the dizzy ripple of golden power as Xel reached, just to be prepared--but it was a black and filthy power now, and this wasn't Xel.  
  
Only Xellos, and no time for either.  
  
No time at all, just red lights behind the girl in a pattern like snowflakes, and then an explosion where the mazoku had been only a moment ago. Milgazia wasn't worried, though, not about him. He'd had plenty of time to duck out. And if the scarlet lights meant anything--and they ought to--then this was one of the Chaos-Dragon's minions. Xellos should be able to out-think it while standing on his head.  
  
Mil shielded his eyes against the dust from the explosion to peer at where the lights had been--until the girl stood up. Strange that a girl so small could block his view. It was impressively wild hair. "Seigram," she gasped.  
  
The thing took shape in front of them all, a faceless figure wrapped in a hooded black cloak, with a glowing red light where an eye might have been, and just the hint of something unsavory beside it. Its arms were mummified darkness, and strange designs suggesting digestive organs sprawled over its chest. "I won't let you go," it proclaimed triumphantly. "You will die here!" Between its hands a red eye grew, pupilless and glowing in luminous, phlegm-colored vitrium that brightened until it really was almost white.  
  
Mil recoiled in surprise as a dozen fiery spheres flung themselves at the mountain. Not them, the mountain. Was even Maryu-ou so abysmally stupid as to try and destroy the Bible? Without doing -research- first? This was pointless!  
  
But while he was gaping, Mini-Softballs had erected a barrier around them and Blue Thing had drawn his sword and activated a not-very-effective-for- this-kind-of-combat enchantment on it. They stood bravely, preparing to fend off the brainless intestinal thing.  
  
I don't need this, he thought. I don't need this, I don't, I really, really don't need this today! Profoundly annoyed, he opened his mouth and roared, letting a sheet of laser breath rip out towards the flying mazoku. How dare it try to destroy any kind of a library? And the sheer incompetence of its method was worthy of death all by itself!  
  
The damned thing ducked.  
  
Not only enraged but annoyed, he sucked in another breath to try again, but there was a shiver behind him. Cold hands lighted on his hips, and a soft, low voice in his ear breathed, "Focus, Miru-kun."  
  
In the next moment, Xellos had shimmered away again, and reappeared above them in a circle of black and moss-green. "Your opponent," he scolded the other mazoku in a loud, surprised, what-did-you-think voice, "is going to be me, of course." Without looking back, he said in a more normal tone, "Lina-san, why don't you leave this to me--and get moving!"  
  
And then they started fighting much too fast to see. But Lina just sat there, trying to track them anyway.  
  
Focused as instructed, vexed beyond endurance, and feeling so much better that he was seriously tempted to horrify them all by bursting into song, Mil leaned down and grabbed her arm, his other arm still encased in the illusion of stone. "Hurry!" he said, feeling his mouth stretch in strange ways around the war between a scowl and a grin, "Once we pass over the barrier, even a mazoku will find tracking us no easy task."  
  
"But--" Lina began, casting a troubled gaze at the sky.  
  
How sweet that she was concerned for her teacher.  
  
He tugged at her insistently, and she sighed, obviously still worried. She got up, though, and let him pull her through. It was a real pity that crossing the barrier was so much like slogging through a waterfall of molasses; he wanted in -now.- There was something very, very dark and very large approaching. Xellos could deal with his own problems. Mil had a job to do, thank you very much, and he was cracking well scampering.  
  
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In the battle between the adorable little beta wolf and the mummified intestinal cyclops monster, who will win? Oh, the excitement is nerve- wracking! The tension is unbearable! Oh, wait--Fuzzy's got his picture in the eyecatches at commercial break? Never mind, then.  
  
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Review Responses!  
  
Stara Maijika: I'm glad you're enjoying Milgazia--I enjoy him myself. There's somethiing really attractive about a character who's so clearly holding back, isn't there? It gives a writer so much –scope.-  
  
Sapphirefly: If that's the only thing you can think of, then I'll take it as a compliment. ;-) In fact, I agree with you. Sadly, the one drawback of a POV piece is you have to stay in the character's head. Milgazia strikes me as many things, but lyrical isn't one of them. You should stay tuned for the rest or the arc, though (blatant plug? Me?); -Xellos- is lyrical as all get out (grins).  
  
Fancy: well! Call me sleek and purring. :-) I'll outrage my Xelmuse and sell you secrets for your outrageous flattery. 1-This short thing is neither the Xellos origin story nor the Rezo piece. 2-There will be one. 


	3. let in the free air

Disclaimer: Anyone who thinks that any of this dialogue belongs to me should beware of major spoilers for Slayers: NEXT. Anyone who thinks that any of these characters belong to me is clearly new to the idea of fanfiction. Anyone who reviews gets love. It might stretch as far as homemade brownies (dangle, dangle. Heeere, fishies...)

Author chat: Love and banana bread to Stara Maijika, most of whose questions shall be answered! :-)

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Kowai Kare Da

part three of three

(chapter title: let in the free air)

by Nightfall

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The passage felt longer than it should have, even with two of them.

"Is it here?" Lina asked eagerly, looking eagerly around as soon as they'd emerged from the Sparkly Floating Corridor of Slo-Mo.

He looked back at her, just out of the corner of his eye, since he was almost positive that something had come through with them. He caught a glimpse, under her enormous cloak, of a lot of pale flesh topped in green. Gaav's minions had already made an appearance, so it might have been that short spitfire priest of his. Even Valgaav usually wore more than that, though, so probably not. He decided to see how she'd handle her stalker on her own.

"The Claire Bible and this passage," he lectured as though it were a tour, "were formed together a thousand years ago, during the Kouma Sensou. Follow me closely, human maiden. Many forgotten things remain, and monsters roam these corridors."

"I hear ya," she laughed nervously, walking a little faster. "Like I'd be dumb enough to..." She paused, choked, and screamed, "MARTINA?! What are you doing here?"

Not Valgaav, then. Good. Even Milgazia's dubious reputation wouldn't count against the color of his scales with that one, who had been an Ancient dragon once. He turned around, and barely contained a wince. What was it with modern human fashions? This Martina girl was even more badly dressed than Xellos's Lina. Impressive, considering how much less she was wearing. Mil was usually a big fan of skimpy clothing on people who were much too young for him, but her hair was distracting, and her shoulder-guards were a monstrosity. Or possibly it was the other way around.

"You can't escape me, Lina," the tiny thing gloated, clinging to his charge's ankle with both hands and refusing to be kicked off. "Now -I'll- get the Claire Bible, and with my own hands I'll use it to rebuilt my Kingdom of Xoanna!"

Mil didn't have to know what she was talking about to hear the unspoken 'and then you'll be sorry' at the end of that.

"Martina," Lina groaned, drooping as though she'd heard it all before and had lost interest years ago, "Just--stay out of this one, okay?"

"Excuse me?" the girl sniffed haughtily, scrambling to her feet. "You stay out!"

"What did you say?" Lina growled, balling her fists up by her breasts. Not, in Mil's opinion, a wise choice: it made it obvious that her fists were bigger.

"You heard me," the girl shouted back. They glared at each other for a moment, nose-to-nose, and then fell to hair-pulling with the most guttural battle-cries he'd ever heard from any female.

Mil hated to interrupt such a touching reunion between old friends. Oh, wait. No, he didn't. Honestly, humans had the most pathetic attention span...

He pulled a piece of cut quartz out of his astral pocket and flicked it through the air. Their reaction was even better than he'd hoped: they -both- went for it. Their eyes went starry and they turned from each other, just to in time to see it fall into a puddle and mourn with disappointed noises.

They made very cute display (it would have been cuter without their cloaks in the way), but Xellos was unlikely to give them unlimited time. The Lina maiden would most likely prefer to find her friends in the same condition she'd left them in.

"Be silent, both of you," he boomed repressively. "This is no ordinary labyrinth. It is a path of stepping-stones inlaid upon the Astral Plane. A single misstep carries a grave penalty: to be lost forever in the ether." He bowed his head somberly. "As we are now."

The insufficiently clad girl looked impressed and worried, in a posing kind of way, but he got the sense that her understanding of the disaster he was describing was as incomplete as her outfit. His actual charge, on the other hand, went a satisfying whey color that spoke as well for her education as the determination under her unease did for her character. She grinned up uncertainly at him. "J-just one little mistake won't get us lost--will it?"

He looked gravely to one side, shifting only his eyes as though in well-controlled distress, and then met her eyes. It was a trick, looking down at someone without appearing to look down his nose. He remembered practicing it while Rezo modeled and a smirking and an oh-so-helpful--look--how-helpful-I'm-being mystery priest, too short to bother, held up mirrors for him and went into fits of gleeful hysteria by way of feedback when he ended up looking mostly constipated.

He had it down, now, although he rarely got to use it on anyone who took him seriously as an authority figure anymore. -They- were buying it, though, because when he intoned, "Alas, already it is too late," the Lina collapsed in despair and the Martina shrieked piercing horror.

He held the moment for as long as he could justify it to himself, which was coincidentally also as long as his sensitive ears could take the high-pitched Ah Ah Ai Ya Alackadays. Then, without changing his voice or expression (sometimes he thought he'd forgotten how), turned back to their path, intoning, "I merely jest."

Lina was gripping the back of his collar in an instant, snarling up into his ear. "Quit fooling around and -take me there!-"

He shrugged minutely, just to feel the extra weight as her feet left the ground, and inclined his head. "As you wish." Really, she made an excellent straight man.

[At this point, the director foolishly indicated a scene-change, leaving the author free to insert what spackle she wills. The author, however, despite the enormous enjoyment she takes in perverting our good librarian's character almost beyond recognition, has no interest in actually putting words in his mouth at this point in the arc, and will take minimal advantage.]

The path to the Bible was not a short one--a fact of which Mil heartily approved. The length was meant to give suppliants time to calm themselves and consider their requests in the soberness of sore feet, but he mostly liked it for what it gave him time to do to the fools who occasionally tried to manhandle him into showing them the way.

Today, however, he would have preferred a shorter road: this one just gave everyone, those with him and those left behind, time to fight. He gathered that the buxom one considered his charge responsible for her homeland's destruction. Lina disagreed loudly, stating in no uncertain terms that not only had the Martina-child brought everything on her own head in the first place, but her subsequent behavior had more than equalized any imagined imbalance between them. Martina tried at one point to bring Mil onto her side, but he ignored them both which such perfect indifference that she soon stopped.

They really were very refreshing, these girls.

He listened, amused, until they started repeating themselves and ceased to be entertaining. "You argue at great length, human maidens," he rumbled, "about a matter you have no means of affecting. It is a pastime which neither creates beauty nor decreases entropy."

Abashed, they fell silent. He let them chew this over for a while, and then tried to open a useful avenue of conversation. "Still," he addressed Lina, "I well can see your worth, that Xellos should put such faith in you."

Odd. The curvy one's aura vibrated violently at that.

"Oh?" Lina asked with sly sweetness, and he braced himself for some kind of explosion. "But where Xellos is concerned, I could never compete with an old acquaintance of his like yourself, Milgazia-san, right?"

Clearly she was trying to make him blush or splutter, with all that innuendo sunbathing itself in the open like that. He'd forgotten how to blush before turning three hundred, though, and it was so dismally untrue that he just got depressed. Not only had Xellos (although you never could tell, with Xellos) shown very little sign of looking back at him, but he'd been almost sure that he wasn't being obvious. So much for his poker-face.

"The old acquaintance of a monster?" Martina bit off sharply. "Don't make fun of me; you'll just end up crying."

"I wasn't trying to," she said, adding with a wry little chuckle, "although I take your point."

Mil smiled at himself, since his back was to them. Even if he did wear his heart on his sleeve, at least his dignity had survived intact. Still, this was as good a time as any to make his point, and it might save him some teasing.

"An old acquaintance?" he demanded quietly, stopping in his tracks right before the inner chamber and clenching his shoulders into clean lines of tension. "That, then, is why you believe I have led you thus far? Why I so meekly hasten to fulfill his requests?"

"Huh?" Lina asked, in a voice of natural befuddlement. "Well, clearly you two aren't exactly best buddies, but--"

"He is terrifying," he said flatly, quietly. They nearly stopped breathing. "A thousand years ago, during the War of Fallen Evil, we faced one who wiped out an entire dragon clan in a moment--single-handedly. That is the kind of opponent Xellos is."

And the frightening part was, that was what he did to mere opponents, out of duty, without spite or personal enmity. He would have liked to tell them the really important thing--that Xel had been a thousand times scarier when he was just a hyperactive, imaginative human priest with a burning desire to teach people manners--but since Xellos seemed to be on their side, it wasn't the lesson they were most in need of learning. Not now, and not from him.

"You should never force a monster to see you as a challenge," he said, so softly they had to strain to hear him. "There is nothing more foolhardy than trying to get the better of their like." Point made, he moved his foot fractionally, opening the last 'door' he could help them through.

"Foolhardy?" Lina demanded at once, stung. "If you don't take a few risks--"

You end up chained to a rock for a thousand years with the jeers of children muddying your scales, he finished for her silently, but it wasn't true. He'd gambled on integrity in the midst of a holocaust, which was a stupid enough risk to last anyone a lifetime, and he hadn't even entirely lost.

He had no intention of explaining this to her, though. He wasn't going to have to, either, because the next voice that spoke wasn't his.

Strictly speaking, it laughed. It usually did laugh, and the way it laughed was one of the reasons he and Rezo had taken Xel's fall so hard.

When it did speak, it spoke to Lina. "Just as I'd expect of my sweet little Lina," Ceiphied's echo burbled.

He turned without surprise to see what form the dreaming ghost of his god had taken today. He had to look down quite a long way to see a tiny, wrinkled, green-skinned old lady with a huge, gnarled stick. The stick, he expected, was to rap him over the head with if he talked back to her in front of this major player in the cold war crystallizing around them.

The major player, who was speechless and dewy-eyed with joy, finally wrenched an, "Auntie Aqua!" out of a full heart.

Auntie? He looked at it blankly, thinking, ::Politics, Bright Lord, or sentiment?:: as loud as he could, and ::or senility:: rather more quietly.

He was almost sure he saw the staff quiver.

"So you finally made it, sweet Lina," the echo crooned in an childish old-lady voice like bright rock candy.

::I only hope, Bright Father,:: he thought at it gravely, ::that you will give your servant sufficient warning before the ceremony to copy out an adoption form. May I suggest that a set of dark-blue robes would best set off the lovely hair of both such charming ladies?::

"And the Golden Dragon, too," it said, emphasizing his ranking color in as clear a 'shove off and let your Lord Grandmother deal with you, there's a love' as he'd ever heard. Mil didn't stick out his tongue, but he didn't have any better retorts, either. "It's been a long time," it went on to say. Which must have been in response to the lack of filial backtalk, since he'd come in the week before and Lina was looking at it as though it were a miracle, not a ghost.

"I just came back here like you told me to, Auntie Aqua," she said softly, tearfully, getting down to the echo's eye level. Then her eyes went bright and sparkly. "Now, give me my reward!"

::Oh, of course,:: Mil snickered silently from behind his stoneface. ::Unlimited knowledge... tea... no contest. Bright Lord, don't you know who brought her?::

His god's voice hit him, then, enveloping him in a delicious, shivering warmth and sounding a little plaintive. ::My Daughter Her Sister Is More Restful.::

It was looking at the girls, who were clamoring for Bible Right Now. How nice, Mil thought, to see such a love of learning in the youth of the day. He personally could have used the tea.

He managed not to react to any of this, beyond looking at Lina. This was the Knight's sister? But the Knight was dark-haired and demure. And built. Still, surprise wasn't going to stop him making a perfectly good point.

::Dear my Lord,:: he said instead of the more formal address because of the spiritual hug he'd just gotten, ::'Restful' hasn't woken you yet.::

[end]


End file.
